ATA President, Staff Take Ice Bucket Challenge to Raise Money, Awareness for ALS Cause
This story appears in the Aug. 25 print edition of Transport Topics.
American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves drenched himself with icy water last week as he took part in the “Ice Bucket Challenge,” a campaign to raise awareness of the nerve disease ALS and help fund a cure.
Graves met a challenge from Derek Leathers, president and chief operating officer of truckload carrier Werner Enterprises Inc.
“It was great fun for an incredibly good cause, and it makes you wonder why someone didn’t do something like this before,” Graves told Transport Topics after the dousing. “It will be interesting to see what sort of challenges come about next.”
ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a nervous-system disease that causes muscle weakness and impacts physical function as nerve cells gradually break down and die, according to the Mayo Clinic. It is also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, after the Hall of Fame baseball player who died of ALS. The disease can’t be cured, but doctors focus on slowing the progression of it and relieving symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic. Still soggy from the icy water washing over him, Graves also noted his support of Robert Baylor, president of Baylor Trucking Inc., who is battling the disease.
Cari Baylor, his daughter and vice president of the carrier, said her father is heartened by the support.
“He’s hopeful and grateful to his many friends and colleagues taking the challenge and encouraging others to make a difference,” she told TT. “He’s continuing to fight for a cure.”
The Milan, Indiana-based carrier issued a challenge industrywide, and started a Facebook page solely for truckers and their family and friends to post their Ice Bucket Challenge responses in support of ALS.
More than a dozen others at ATA volunteered along with Graves for the challenge, including Stefanie Karp, who heads business process and performance improvement.
She said that she decided to accept the challenge after watching a couple of documentaries on ALS.
“It’s an orphan disease,” she said, meaning there’s too little financial incentive for the pharmaceutical industry to make and market new medications for treatment. “I thought, ‘That’s a really wrong way to approach an illness.’ ”
As many as 30,000 Americans may currently be afflicted with ALS, according to the ALS Association, which said that the disease is responsible for two deaths per 100,000 people annually.
The challenge — which involves people video recording themselves getting soaked with icy water and then nominating others to do the same and donate to the ALS foundation — has gone viral on the Internet, attracting more than a million followers and millions in donations. The social-media craze has caused awareness of the disease to spike.
ATA said its initial collection was more than $350. As of Aug. 21, the ALS Association said it had received $41.8 million compared with $2.1 million during the same time period last year. The group’s mission includes providing care services to assist people with ALS and their families.
Barbara Newhouse, CEO of the ALS Association, said the association plans to be strategic about how it spends the funds “so that when people look back on this event in 10 and 20 years, the Ice Bucket Challenge will be seen as a real game-changer for ALS.”
After Graves met the challenge, he issued several of his own, including to America’s Road Team and to Ed Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads.
Correspondent Mindy Long contributed to this article.
